My Callers Hear Buttons Being Pushed

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 09, 2006 Posts: 14

When I'm talking with someone every now and then they complain of hearing buttons pushed on the phone when I'm not pushing anything. Occassionally I can hear it too.

My modem (as you'll see below) needs updating but I've used my Vonage service with other people's newer modems and still have the same problem. See my troubleshooting details below.

1. Your location
Dallas, TX

2. Your ISP name and type (cable, DSL, wireless etc)
Cable - Time Warner

3. Upload and download speeds
Download speed: 6573776 bps
Upload speed: 486864 bps

4. Modem make and model
Motorola SB4220

5. Type of Vonage adapter used ie RT31P2 or PAP2
Not sure. It says "VTA-VD" on the back

6. Setup of Network
Modem---->Vonage Adapter-->PC

7. Issue you are experiencing ie dropped calls, choppy audio etc

When I'm talking with someone every now and then they complain of hearing buttons pushed on the phone when I'm not pushing anything. Occassionally I can hear it too.

8. Run this VoIP Test:

Speed test statistics
---------------------
Download speed: 6573776 bps
Upload speed: 486864 bps
Quality of service: 98 %
Download test type: socket
Upload test type: socket
Maximum download pause: 103 ms
Average download pause: 1 ms
Minimum round trip time to server: 59 ms
Average round trip time to server: 62 ms

VoIP test statistics
--------------------
Jitter: you --> server: 4.4 ms
Jitter: server --> you: 8.3 ms
Packet loss: you --> server: 0.0 %
Packet loss: server --> you: 0.0 %
Packet discards: 0.0 %
Packets out of order: 0.0 %
Number of supported VoIP lines: 8
Estimated MOS score: 3.9

Posts: 533

Yeah, this has been discussed many, many times in the past. The tones you hear are called DTMF tones and can be triggered by higher frequency voices, such as a female voice.

I've been through hell and back with Vonage on this and there is nothing they can (or will?) do about it. Sorry, I know that's not much help, but it is what it is.

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Aug 09, 2006 Posts: 14

Well that's discouraging. Thanks for letting me know.

Posts: 72 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 21, 2006 Posts: 72

The root cause is that Vonage uses out-of-band signalling for DTMF tones. This means that your phone adapter detects the dual tones associated with button presses and transmits them separately to the actual audio. The other end then reconstructs the tones. This is a very good practive with VOIP because DTMF tones can get messed up by the voice compression (if low or medium quality is selected) or by jitter in the IP transport. Unfortunately, the tone detection can occasionally detect false tones occurring as a result of normal speech. This is particularly true with female voices.

If you ask Vonage, they may be able to turn off OOB DTMF signalling on your adapter. However, this may cause problems when you try entering information (account number) etc. using button presses.

Posts: 60 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 60

During a call with my wife, her voice will trigger it 3-4 times during the course of the call. Annoying? Yes, but I can live with it.